WS Excursions

[IpswichChris]

First time cruiser here, so have a lot of dumb questions!  I know that cruise line excursions are generally more expensive and maybe have bigger groups than land-based tour company excursions, so a lot of cruisers prefer these independent tours.  But if anyone can generalize, how would you rate Windstar excursions as far as quality of the leaders, etc., if not in terms of value for the money.  And would you say that number of people on WS excursion is significantly larger than independent tours?  For us, the smaller the group, the better.  For my husband, the security of knowing the ship won't leave without us if it's a WS tour and not having to locate meeting place for tour operators in a town/city might make paying extra for the cruise line excursion worthwhile.  We'd be glad for any insights.

[IpswichChris]

Well, I forgot something I wanted to mention and have to reply to my own post....our cruise is Italy and Croatia at the end of September, and fully enjoying the offering of each port is very important to us.

[avalong]

Great time of year to do that cruise! We took several WS tours on that cruise and they were very good. I recall there being 20 - 25 people on the tours, maybe 30. 

[Second seating]

We did Venice to Rome a few years ago and only took Windstar excursions and they were all excellent.  Some of the stops we only walked around the towns.  In French Polynesia did we book other excursions and in St. Petersburg we booked a guide and driver for 2 days to see what we wanted. Hope to take our 5th Windstar cruise this spring.

Second seating

[Petoonya]

You can't go wrong with WS tours- haven't had an experiences that I could fuss about. Leaders always seem to be superb. The other thing is that if your husband will stress not making it back to the ship in time you'd best stick with ship's tours. The only thing we have a LOT of difficulty with is the size of the tours. Yes they are generally much bigger than independents. I really don't want to do Pompei or Siena with 25 people. We probably do about 75% of our touring with independents for that reason. Also haven't had a problem in 30 years of cruising meeting a tour leader right at the dock in plain sight.

 

The tours that I like to stick with are those where there are between 4 and 10 cruisers. You can glean a lot of info from the boards here about independent tours.....check out "Europe" under Ports of Call on here. There is a separate section for Italy. if you don't see a topic you like just start one. So many friendly posters who like to share their experiences.....same goes for Croatia under "other Med ports".

[IpswichChris]

On 2/15/2022 at 7:48 PM, Petoonya said:

You can't go wrong with WS tours- haven't had an experiences that I could fuss about. Leaders always seem to be superb. The other thing is that if your husband will stress not making it back to the ship in time you'd best stick with ship's tours. The only thing we have a LOT of difficulty with is the size of the tours. Yes they are generally much bigger than independents. I really don't want to do Pompei or Siena with 25 people. We probably do about 75% of our touring with independents for that reason. Also haven't had a problem in 30 years of cruising meeting a tour leader right at the dock in plain sight.

 

The tours that I like to stick with are those where there are between 4 and 10 cruisers. You can glean a lot of info from the boards here about independent tours.....check out "Europe" under Ports of Call on here. There is a separate section for Italy. if you don't see a topic you like just start one. So many friendly posters who like to share their experiences.....same goes for Croatia under "other Med ports".

Thank you so much for all this info.  Never got far enough into this website to see the "Ports of Call" so that's great to know

[Pudgesmom]

I’ve taken a couple of Windstar tours. All were well run with interesting guides. They are however, larger groups. 
 

I would like to add one thing about independent excursions. These tour operators are in business to stay in business. They rely heavily on places like yelp, Google and trip advisor. They cannot afford to get bad reviews, especially for getting people back late. They know their towns, roads and traffic patterns. 
 

Another thing to do is book an excursion that returns to the ship a couple of hours before sailaway.

[milepig]

We've done just about every option possible.

 

WS tours are convenient and indeed ensure you're back to the ship on time (in our experience they once held the ship and in another were waiting to pull up the gangplank as soon as we were all herded aboard). Of late, especially with the YC discount, I've found they're pricing to be more competitive. Of course, they're also a good way to eat up shipboard credit. We've had a couple guides who barely spoke any English and in one case a defective bus that had no suspension - WS made good on that one. We tend to avoid WS tours where a major part is food - lunch, dinner, local "snacks" etc. as we've tended to be herded into someplace like cattle and then herded back out. One exception was the including lunch on our Alhambra tour - amazing. Also one in Japan where the food and Sake just kept coming. We also had an amazing lunch in Malaysia - so very up and down. WS deliberately under fills either buses so there is always a lot of room, you're never stuffed in.

 

We've just walked around towns on our own - perfect when you're docked right in the center of town or there's a shuttle into town. Especially by the time we his the middle of a cruise it is so liberating to just walk around on our own for awhile. Very often the WS tour guide can be persuaded to drop you off in town on the way back to the ship, we do that to same some walking time in town, making sure we know what time the last shuttle leave. Perfect after a morning tour, just get off and have lunch at a local restaurant.

 

We've recently begun to explore the Hop on Hop off buses. in many places they have a stop right at the cruise port - we tend to do the loop twice, one to mark on the map where we want to go and then the second time to get on and off. The stops tend to be close to the major attractions. Probably your cheapest option other than walking.

 

We've also done full day private tours, included several in Ireland and Scotland that were amazing, great local guides who were willing to "go with the flow" we'd say beforehand "we're interested in history, nature, local crafts and food" and they'd plan the day for us. More expensive if there's just 2 of you, but we can often find another couple on board to join us. In most cases, the guide is waiting on the dock for us, as close as they can get, and then drops us back at the same spot at the end, although in some cases they've been more than willing to drop us in town for some shopping before we return to the ship on our own.

Edited February 25, 2022 by milepig

[Pudgesmom]

We had this experience while walking around town being independent!
 

We were in a tiny town in Greenland on one of the motor yachts and decided to walk the perimeter of town. It was trash day and we saw many residents wheel their bins out just as the truck arrived at their homes. 
 

It all seemed a little odd. Then we remembered the town’s reputation had something to do with polar bears! We hightailed it back to the ship, and made it safely lol.

[Strenz]

What a great story. Brought a smile to my morning. The wonder of travel. Happy Sailing.